HR & OD

HR & OD function's job is never done. Aside from finding the right person for a job, managers must also ensure that their succession planning is on track, that they find ways to develop the talent of existing employees, train them for specific skills and reduce turnover at the same time.

However, this doesn't have to be as complicated as it sounds. With the help of psychological assessments, you can find the solutions that fulfill your needs.

The assessments offered here are made available as part of a complete online testing center, which features a user-friendly interface. You can assign tests, and develop customized benchmarks with ease and efficiency. You can have access to as many tests as you want from the available tests.

Job Analysis

Job Analysis Matrix

When a position opens up in a company, companies often dive right in and start actively looking for candidates to fill it. The question is, do you know precisely what you are looking for? When it comes to specific skills, hiring managers typically have a decent idea of what to look for. But how about less obvious, transferable skills? How about personality traits and attitudes? These factors frequently don't make it into the position's blueprint ... if there even is one.

In order to save time, many hiring officers take a shortcut - they model the position after the last person who held it (who may or may not have been a perfect fit), and essentially either look for a "clone" or a complete opposite (in order to compensate for the last candidate's failings). Whatever the case, the person in charge of hiring a replacement gives the position some thought and writes up a job description which tends to consist of a list of tasks and requirements. Sometimes, they include a generic list of traits, like willingness to learn, good communication skills, and self-motivation, but generally consider them less of a priority.

Unfortunately, there is plenty of room for error with this approach, and the errors propagate and set over time. Large companies typically have a process to ensure that they get the hiring pattern right, but most small and medium-size businesses simply fly by the seat of their pants. And shabby hiring patterns result in shabby fit.

This is where Job Analysis Matrix (JAM) comes in. Job analysis is one of the most important tools used by HR professionals. Job analysis results can be used for:- development of job description- creation of interview questions- selection of psychological tests and skill assessments- employee performance evaluation- training needs analysis

Pre-Employment

Pre-employment Assessments

Today's job seekers have learned all the right things to say and write in order to impress a potential employer. Their CVs look similar and in the interview, their responses can sometimes sound so rehearsed.

One of the best ways to get a clearer picture about a candidate's personality, values and attitudes is through a personality evaluation. With personality tests, you can recruit employees and save company resources.

Assessments allow you to:

Optimize screening of job candidates.Filter out poor fits for the job and organization even before the interview process.

Make informed hiring decisions.Tests complement information obtained from résumés and interviews and give a more complete picture of who a potential hire really is.

Assess traits relevant to the job.Personality profiles can provide an over-arching view of a candidate's character, but if you want to assess skills or traits that are job-specific, we have custom-made tests for particular positions - manager, salesperson, office administrator, or other professionals.

Compare a candidate to your top performers.Using industry or custom benchmarks, our reports can show you how a candidate compares to star employees you wish you could clone.

Onboarding

Onboarding

Onboarding process is crucial to getting an employee started on the right foot. It's an opportunity to clarify tasks and roles, to ease them into the social environment, and clear up the shell-shock of starting in a new place. You'll have an employee who can hit the ground running, excited to get started.

Using assessments during the onboarding process can help you to:

Focus on-the-job training and coaching on areas that need development.Effective recruitment processes increase the likelihood of hiring someone with the best skills, personality, and attitude, but there may still be areas to develop. Assessments can provide insight about a person's strengths and areas that need improvement.

Prevent performance issues before they start.Will that extrovert you hired socialize too much? Will that conscientious worker be too inhibited to take risks? Use insight gained from a test report to learn ahead of time about potential conflicts between your work environment and a candidate's personality. This allows you to address issues during orientation. For example, you can explain the company policy with respect to breaks and ensure ample social contact for your extroverted candidate by assigning projects that require teamwork.

Manage employees effectively.Knowing a person's quirks enables a manager to adjust his or her style and approach. Some people prefer structure and direction, others prefer more autonomy. Some people thrive on feedback and praise, others prefer more tangible motivators. Learning about an employee's personality can go a long way to increasing job satisfaction and productivity.

Integrate new team members seamlessly.In ideal team situations, each member fulfills a specific role. When hiring a candidate to add to the team, it is essential to determine whether the individual's personality and skills fit the team dynamics. Hiring new team members with a clear understanding of their personality and style can facilitate their integration into your existing team.

Career Development

Career Development

Money is no longer the top motivator. Research findings indicate that learning on the job motivates them more than high salary or a fancy job title. This means that developing employee potential is essential, whether in the form of additional training to upgrade specific skills, unique and challenging projects, or a lateral move into a totally new position in the company. Studies show that the return on investment for companies who implement learning opportunities can increase anywhere from 300% to a whopping 1500%. Just imagine what that can do for your bottom line!

Assessments that enhance career development and employee potential can help you to:

Create customized learning opportunities.Regardless of your budget, learning opportunities are in abundance—whether through internal training programs or economical solutions like continuing education classes, webinars, workshops, and seminars. And with sufficient knowledge about areas where an employee's potential can be further developed, suitable opportunities for additional education and training can be tailored to each individual preference.

Boost employee benefit programs.Offering employees free and confidential access to assessments on topics such as communication and social skills, conflict management, coping strategies, assertiveness or learning styles will positively impact their behavior at work, and will have the added benefit of spilling over into their personal life.

Identify trends and gaps in skills or knowledge.A company-wide assessment may reveal issues that would otherwise go unnoticed. For instance, your organization can monitor risk of burnout or stress level in employees and implement preventive measures. Identifying gaps and trends can even enhance your onboarding process by ensuring that new employees are well-equipped and prepared to handle all challenges.

Assess the effectiveness of your training process.By using specific assessments before and a few months after your training process, you can obtain valuable insight on how well an employee has progressed - and whether your training process needs some tweaking. Identify areas where training is effective, and pinpoint issues that were not adequately addressed.

Succession Planning

Succession Planning

Whether through retirement, illness, maternity/paternity leave, or other reasons, employees will come and go, and you need to be prepared to fill in the holes. Whether this happens seamlessly depends entirely on how effectively you have planned ahead and trained the replacements.

Assessments can aid in future planning by helping you to:

Identify employees who are ready to climb the ladder—or cross the hallway.Some people get tired of doing the same tasks day-in and day-out. They hunger for new challenges and responsibilities, whether it's moving up the ladder to a position with more authority, moving laterally to a different department, or rotating tasks with a colleague. Whatever the case, assessments can help you identify people who are ready for a change.

Cultivate novice employees for future positions.Having to say goodbye to a veteran employee who knew the company inside-out can be very difficult. However, if you know ahead of time that retirement is imminent, your star veteran can be the perfect mentor and coach for a budding employee with potential. By determining the skills and traits needed to effectively fill a veteran's shoes and using them as a benchmark for others to live up to, your rookie will be well-equipped to take over when the time comes.

Focus training efforts on areas that need development.Training is one of the things your organization can do to improve job satisfaction of employees and actually get an amazing return on investment in the short as well as long term. Whether the training is formal or informal, tests can identify the areas that need development so that you can focus your training on the most relevant issues with the highest payoff in terms of performance.

Find the right outside talent when you can't promote from within.In order to stay competitive, sometimes a company needs to shake things up and bring in fresh talent. If you need to boost your company with some new expertise, assessments like a multi-rater Job Analysis Matrix (JAM) can help identify the exact qualities that are required for a position. This way, you'll know exactly what to fish for in the talent pool, and you can use other ARCH Profile tests to assess the candidate's fit.

Talent Retention

Talent Retention & Turnover Reduction

Statistics show that 70% of top performers are expecting to leave a company within 2 years. The costs of hiring and training can be overwhelming, which makes the retention of talented employees (and the prevention of hiring mistakes) crucial to a company's bottom line.

Assessments can reduce turnover and retain employees by helping you to:

Ensure a candidate fits the job.It's pretty straightforward: employees who love what they do will be more enthusiastic, productive, and committed— even if they don't get paid top dollars. Ensuring that a person fits the position, skills and personality-wise, is one of the most effective methods to reduce turnover rates.

Offer incentives to stay.This doesn't necessarily mean dangling a bonus in front of employees. Learning opportunities, growth opportunities, new responsibilities, autonomy, leadership positions … these are perks that many employees appreciate and value. Assessments can offer insight into an individual's motivators, so that you can offer incentives that matter to them.

Promote from within.Assessing your staff to identify who has management potential will allow you to fill leadership positions with someone you know, who works well with others, and who is already familiar with the organization— and who you can shape into the perfect manager. It can be a much more cost-effective solution than hiring and training a totally new person, and it will be a clear message to all workers that hard work and dedication pays off.

Determine the probability of turnover for various positions— and people.Even the best companies, despite active efforts, rarely reduce turnover rates below 5%. Whether it's a result of employee burnout, lack of sufficient training, or simply someone who has a history of job-hopping, assessments can help you monitor and plan for these issues.

360 Assessments

360 Assessments

360 feedback systems have surged in popularity and use - and for good reason. They offer invaluable, insightful, and often eye-opening information on the performance of employees, managers and teams.

360 assessment offers information that can help develop a person's and the team's potential beyond the limits of standard, one-on-one feedback approaches. 360 feedback can be applied to any aspect of performance, attitudes, behaviors, skills, aptitudes or personality traits. Here are some examples: